Inside the SoHo flagship of Japanese fashion brand Uniqlo in NYC is the company’s newest sustainability initiative. For $5, Uniqlo’s alterations staff will repair any Uniqlo piece of clothing brought into the store.
The repair studio opened on January 27, taking up a small corner of the ground floor of the store. Customers can get buttons and zippers replaced, holes patched, and seams mended, in order to keep the clothes wearable for as long as possible. The new studio is part of Uniqlo’s Re: Uniqlo program, a group of projects all focused on circular fashion. Through the program, Uniqlo collects old products from consumers and recycles the fibers into new products.
The idea of circular fashion, or increasing a product’s lifecycle through reselling, recycling and reusing products, is becoming a dominant tactic among brands attempting to be more sustainable. While recycling and reselling are popular and flashy, offering repairs is a simpler way to make an impact. While luxury brands like Dior and Chanel have offered repairs for decades, mainstream brands like Uniqlo, Arc’teryx and Madewell have all begun offering quick repair services in-store in the last six months. For Uniqlo, repairs are an essential part of circular fashion.
Source: Glossy
Omni Talk is the retail blog for retailers, written by retailers. Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga founded Omni Talk in 2017 and have quickly turned it into one of the fastest growing blogs in retail. 